[chrismahon]

After 3 years of cutting and splitting wood, drying it and moving it about we've had enough. Our electric chainsaw and hydraulic wood splitter are a bit the worse for wear anyway. We've decided this Winter to burn compressed wood brickettes and have ordered 2 tones of them. They are available in different diameters and lengths, but because our fire is quite small, we have chosen 8cm diameter by 25cm long which come in boxes of 15 and equate to 54 boxes per palette or per ton. The claimed energy output is >4.8KWh per Kg and one ton equates to between 3 and 5 cubic metres of ordinary burning wood (depends on quality and stacking density). So 2 tons should be plenty for us. Costs €700 delivered, so about €200 more than the seasoned hardwood we previously used. But considering all the hours of work we are avoiding that's a small price to pay.


Not sure if these 'logs' are available in the UK? Has anyone experience of them if they are?

[Womble]

Hi Chris,  I'll be interested to see how you get on with this, as it's an option for us too. We always seem to have either time or money, but never both. So, in the money rich but time poor times, they may well make sense.

I'm less convinced about them environmentally though. We had an energy advisor visit here and recommended that we burn these in the Rayburn as a more environmentally friendly alternative to coal. However, when I looked into it, they were going to cost us 60% more than the coal, for the same heat output.

As a result, I figured that the best option environmentally was for us to keep burning the coal, and to give the money we saved to good environmental charities!

Do let us know how they work for you though, and how they compare to real logs  .

[chrismahon]

Well it arrived this morning Womble, all on two pallets in a van- pity we haven't got a fork lift truck. Half an hour later and it was unloaded and stacked, one ton in the wood store and one ton in the greenhouse. It is important to keep it dry and on delivery the moisture content on my meter said 0%. The boxes outside have been wrapped in a tarp. A few boxes have been put in the house which is at 70% humidity and it will be interesting to see if the logs pick up any of that moisture, because then the burning efficiency will reduce. The heat output quoted is based on 10% water content. But no cutting and chopping, no dust, no splinters and no insects. The boxes don't have the visual appeal of neatly stacked logs though -we could do with a large cupboard to hide them in.


We won't be lighting it until November and will report on the performance then.

[chrismahon]

Well I have to say these brickettes are amazing. Our first fire was just a few days ago due to unusually warm weather. Today it was very cold and windless, but trying to get a warm fire with the remains of last years seasoned oak saw two hours of frustration. The fire wouldn't draw properly and the casing temperature was just 180C. Adding one brickette saw the casing temperature rise to over 300C and now the fire is fine. We are still on our first box of 15 -so 107 boxes left which I'm sure we won't use all of.


They light easily and expand lengthways as they burn so should only be half the length of the fire. For maximum duration they should be lit at one end only, which isn't practical. The manufacturer advises no more than two burning at a time, obviously because there is a danger of damaging the wood burner with the heat. They do absorb moisture from the air and now are 5-6% water content, so during long term storage it will be difficult to keep them dry. On balance they were a great buy but we should have got the ones sealed with cling film, which unfortunately were too big for our little fire (Jotul 3) from the supplier we used.

[Womble]

Thanks for reporting back Chris. We'll have to give them a go 

[sss]

We tried some Verdo ones a while back, when our coal merchant hand them on offer. They were good. Plus side, easy to store, clean to handle and burnt well. Downside, green cut logs are cheaper. So carried on buying logs.

[mojocafa]

This company are based in arbroath but deliver free anywhere in uk, I ordered pallet last year and was delighted with them, still have some left 

http://www.firewood-express.com/section/16/1/wood_briquettes_for_sale_free_uk_delivery/ddb0fec2ac49095712fa43636d7dd9f9

[chrismahon]

Our brickettes are round and extruded as a continuous length judging by the video I saw. Couple of useful tools are a damp meter to measure the water content of the wood and an infa-red thermometer to check the casing temperature of the wood burner. The former cost about £5 and the latter about £70 (ETI Ltd, Raytemp4).

[cloddopper]

Chris,
 Would wrapping each box of logs in several layers of commercial grade food wrap help keep the long term stored material at the right moisture ??

 If you think so perhaps also see if you can get a turntable  made up from a non powered car stub axle and the wheel c/w tyre , to make things a lot easier to get it wrapped up .
 

[chrismahon]

The larger brickettes from the company we used are wrapped in cling film as bundles of three Cloddopper. The pallet of boxes was also wrapped in cling film. This is how they keep the moisture content down to the level it was at manufacture which is guaranteed to be less than 10%. When ours arrived it was, according to our meter, zero% water. But of course we had to take the film wrap off the pallets to unload and after two months standing in the house the box at the top of the pile read 6% water content, so I'm not too concerned at the moment. But the ones outside in the wood store, even though they are wrapped in a tarp, may be a problem.


It's a lot of boxes to wrap individually. Guess you have to balance the loss of heat output (due to boiling off the water) against the labour and cost re-wrapping.

[MAK]

Good to hear that you are keeping warm. From an environmental perspective I struggle with the carbon/ energy footprint in the production of these brickettes and the granules. But then I do have free wood within a few meters of us and a friendly neighbour who uses his tractor to haul back more distant wood.  I hope your estimate for next years heating is correct as the price sounds very good unless you have an additional chauffage. it is a glorious day here today so I may start to cut more wood and put off lighting the stove ( it heats 8 radiators)

[chrismahon]

We've just got the one log burner in use- none of the 10 electric radiators have never been switched on in the two Winters we've had here so far MAK. If the sun shines it heats the house because we face South, so we don't light the fire until late afternoon. If the sun doesn't shine it's freezing and the stone walls take a lot of heating, so we have to react quickly to keep the house to temperature. The the amount and speed of heat these brickettes put out means we can now delay fires by about half an hour. I'm hoping we only use a ton, but I know the temperatures can plummet unpredictably here from one day to the next. Although Winters here are short they can be far harsher than the UK, so it's important to have fuel in reserve.


To add- if we were lucky enough to have access to free fire wood I doubt we would have bought this stuff.

[chrismahon]

Last winter was a long one, but we still only used 1 ½ tons compared to the previous 6 m3 of seasoned hardwood, so the claim that 1 ton equals 4 m3 is correct. Keeping it dry outside was a big problem and we eventually moved it into a carefully sealed greenhouse where it has kept well.


We have just taken delivery of another ton. This time it went straight into the house by the fire and has been wrapped in plastic - 20 minutes work in total!


It's so easy to use we certainly won't be going back to 'real' wood again.